Sugary Nightmare

A short pixel-art shoot-em-up game made in a few days for Minijam 144: Nightmare

You will play as a little orange goblin named Tyni, rather a sleepy version of her floating high in the night sky where she is joined by colossal ghoulish-looking candies out to fill her gut with their sugary goodness. Brought on by her sugar withdrawal Tyni is seeing candy in her dreams and nightmares. It's rather unhealthy for her mentally but she feels she needs to do it for her physical health. Bikini season is 3 quarters of a year away after all. Poor thing believes she needs to look as slim as her girlfriend, who by the way likes her just the way she is.

It's that time of year again to put a spotlight on sweets and candy, Halloween! Normally if Tyni wasn't on a diet she'd be jumping with joy. But this year is different. The pain of having to pass up candy while everyone around her gleefully chows down on it has made Halloween a nightmare for her. Literally.

The Game:

The goal is to destroy a giant trick-or-treat pail whose health is represented as an orange bar at the top of the screen. It will retreat each time you take 1/5 of its health and return a little while later.

Every time that you collide with a giant candy Tyni will nom on it and you will lose 1 HP. You have 3 HP represented as broccoli. Why? Tyni hates broccoli but she forces herself to eat it anyway for the sake of losing weight.  It has therefore manifested in her nightmare as the embodiment of health food.

Being hit with an enemy will also cause you to lose your power-up if you have one. What is that? Periodically you will see a word floating around. If you touch it Tyni will take on a new persona for a short while. There are three of them: Witch, Fairy, and Hero. Each of which obliterates candies in different ways.

Witch 

Witching it up is Tyni's day job. That primarily consists of brewing up potions, making remedies, casting hexes, and firing giant death lasers at her enemies. Actually, that last one she doesn't do very often, laws and repercussions and such. She can do it all she wants in her dreams though. This attack takes a bit to charge up but clears the screen faster than anything else.

Fairy

Fairies are benevolent beings who cast light magic in contrast to witches who use dark magic, not that Tyni is evil or anything. But Tyni does dream of being a creature of light every now and then. While as a fairy you will continually cast a shield of light magic that deflects enemies while also damaging them.

Hero

 Tyni dreams of being a superheroine more than anything else. That's what her aunt is and she's awesome. While as a hero you can draw on the screen with a yellow beam. The lines of your drawing will damage enemies. I say draw but with how fast the lines fade you won't be a Picasso. Maybe a Jackson Pollock though.

Here's a short breakdown of the enemies:

Hard Candies: Move across the screen in a wave pattern or straight line.

Candy Corn: A smaller candy corn will burst from them upon death. Watch out!

Sucker: Will chase Tyni around the screen.

Chocolate: Move Horizontally across the top of the screen until they're above Tyni. Once in position, they will drop.

Gummy Worms: Come in large periodic waves and just move from one side of the screen to the other with their posse. 

The Pail: The head honcho will slide around the bottom of the screen and continually summon gummies.

Controls:

W, A, S, D | ( and arrow keys too if you're a savage ) to move

Mouse | to aim and shoot with a left click. Hold and fire.

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My Commentary:

I was excited when I saw the theme of this jam, Nightmare, but when I saw the limitation I was stumped for a while, which was this: include a colossal enemy. While pondering it I drew my protagonist and kind of fell in love with her. It got me thinking about her and what she'd be afraid of. Everything came easy after that. I believe what I came up with in the end has a nice blend of silliness and relatability.

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Credits:

Music by Cleyton Kauffman: https://opengameart.org/users/cleytonkauffman